UPDATE: Thanks for all the people who joined the raffle, the raffle is closed now and the lucky winner will have a mail in the inbox

As mentioned, I am proud to speak at this year’s Experts Live Europe 2017 in Berlin, Germany. Today is your lucky day. If you want to join me at this amazing conference and you do not yet have a Conference Pass, you have the chance to win one today. The full 3-day conference pass is worth €761.60 and gives you access to all sessions, the expo hall, the attendee networking party and the closing party.

About Experts Live Europe 2017

Experts Live Europe is one of Europe’s largest community conferences with a focus on Microsoft cloud, datacenter and workplace management. Top experts from around the world present discussion panels, ask-the-experts sessions and breakout sessions and cover the latest products, technologies and solutions. It’s the time of the year to learn, network, share and make valuable connections.

3 conference days

100 sessions

6 parallel tracks

Private side meetings

Top experts from around the world

More than 20 MVPs on site

Exhibition area with 3rd party vendors

Networking party

Ask the experts area

Quality food & beverages

Conference closing party

Good connected city in Europe

Modern location with easy-to-reach rooms

How to win a free Conference Pass

If this is reason enough for you to join, you can win a conference pass here by doing the following steps:

Share this post on Twitter or/and Facebook or/and Linkedin using the hashtag #ExpertsLive

Leave a comment on this post with a great reason why you want to attend until August 9 23.59 (UTC +1).

Under all comments I will raffle one regular conference pass. The winner will be contacted by email.

Good Luck! And for those who didn’t win, you still have the chance to buy a ticket!

Only included is the regular conference pass (travel cost and hotel is not included)

I am proud to announce that I will speak at Experts Live Europe 2017 Conference at August 23-25 in Berlin. Experts Live, formerly known System Center Universe, is one of Europe’s largest community conferences with a focus on Microsoft cloud, datacenter and workplace management. Top experts from around the world present discussion panels, ask-the-experts sessions and breakout sessions and cover the latest products, technologies and solutions. It’s the time of the year to learn, network, share and make valuable connections. Experts Live presents top content with top presenters around Microsoft Windows Server, System Center, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Intune and much more.

After speaking at different System Center Universe and different Experts Live events in the past years around the world, such as Bern, Basel, Kuala Lumpur, Ede, Melbourne and many more, I am really happy to speak this year again at one of the greatest community conferences in Europe.

If you want to know more about the events from the past check out my blog posts:

Azure Stack - Everything you need to know!

Microsoft released Azure Stack as a Azure appliance for your datacenter. Learn how you deploy, manage and operate a Azure Stack in your datacenter. Learn about the features and options you will get by offering Azure Stack to your customers.

Getting started with Windows Containers, Docker and Azure

In Windows Server 2016 you Microsoft released their first version of Windows and Hyper-V Containers. In this session you will get an overview about how containers work and how you can use them for your deployments and you will learn how you can get started with Containers and Docker on Windows 10, Windows Server or on Microsoft Azure.

Windows Server - What is next in Redstone 3

A little less than one year ago Microsoft released Windows Server 2016. This Fall Microsoft will update Windows Server to the next Current Branch for Business release with new features and improvements together with the Windows 10 Client release. Windows Server will also join the Windows Insider Program and we will see the first innovation coming this summer. Join this session for the best of Windows Server. You will get an overview about the new, exciting improvements that are in Windows Server and how they will improve your day-to-day job.

In this presentation Thomas Maurer (Microsoft MVP) will guide you through the highly anticipated innovations including:

Nano Server is only supported as a Container Image

Microsoft is removing support for the Nano Server operating system running on physical hardware or inside Virtual Machines. Nano Server will be only supported as a Container Image. Windows Server Core will be the preferred installation option for your infrastructure servers like Hyper-V or Storage Spaces Direct.

This next release will focus on making Nano Server the very best container image possible. From these changes, customers will now see the Nano Server images shrink in size by more than 50 percent, further decreasing startup times and improving container density. As part of this effort to focus on containers, we will be removing the functionality for infrastructure-related roles. Instead of using Nano Server for these scenarios, we recommend deploying the Server Core installation option, which includes all the roles and features you would need.

Windows Server Servicing Channel

As mentioned Microsoft will offer Windows Server updates in the Semi-annual Channel as well as in the Long Term Servicing Channel for Nano Server Container Images as well as Windows Server Core.

There will be two primary release channels available to Windows Server customers, the Long-term Servicing Channel, and the new Semi-annual Channel.

Long-term Servicing Channel

The Long-term Servicing Channel is the release model you’re already familiar with (currently called the “Long-term Servicing Branch”) where a new major version of Windows Server is released every 2-3 years. Users are entitled to 5 years of mainstream support, 5 years of extended support, and optionally 6 more years with Premium Assurance. This channel is appropriate for systems that require a longer servicing option and functional stability. Deployments of Windows Server 2016 and earlier versions of Windows Server will not be affected by the new Semi-annual Channel releases. The Long-term Servicing Channel will continue to receive security and non-security updates, but it will not receive the new features and functionality.

Semi-annual Channel

The Semi-annual Channel releases will deliver new functionality for customers who are moving at a “cloud cadence,” such as those on rapid development cycles or hosters keeping up with the latest Hyper-V investments. Windows Server products in the Semi-annual Channel will have new releases available twice a year, in spring and fall. Each release in this channel will be supported for 18 months from the initial release.

Most of the features introduced in the Semi-annual Channel will be rolled up into the next Long-term Servicing Channel release of Windows Server. The editions, functionality, and supporting content might vary from release to release depending on customer feedback.

The Semi-annual Channel will be available to volume-licensed customers with Software Assurance, as well as via the Azure Marketplace or other cloud/hosting service providers and loyalty programs such as MSDN.

Windows Insider Program

At Microsoft Build, Microsoft also announced that Windows Server will be part of the Windows Insider Program, and you will see the first preview builds this summer.

System Center

in the first Semi-annual Channel release from System Center, the team will focus on System Center Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, and Data Protection Manager. The key areas of investment will include support for Windows Server and Linux, enhanced performance, usability and reliability, and extensibility with Azure-based security and management services. Which will bring features like Nested Virtualization support, software load balancing, Storage QoS Self-Service and management support for heterogeneous environments with improved Linux monitoring using a FluentD agent as well as VMware backup. System Center Configuration Manager will continue to offer three releases a year to give you the latest updates for managing servers, PCs, and mobile devices.

Conclusion

This changes will improve the release cadence of datacenter and cloud innovation dramatically. Customers like service providers will have the chance to update their offerings much more often which allows them to add new features and functionality. But there is choice for customers who need a stable and not fast moving environment they can deploy builds from the Long-term servicing channel, which will have long term support. With that you should be able to choose the best solution for your environment and workload.

Microsoft today announced the public preview of disaster recovery for Azure IaaS virtual machines. This is basically Azure Site Recovery (ASR) for the Azure-to-Azure scenario. With that you can replicate Azure virtual machines from one Azure Region to another Azure Region, without deploying any other infrastructure components such as software appliances. Cross-region DR feature is now available in all Azure public regions where ASR is available.

The Azure Documentation describes it the following way:

In addition to the inbuilt Azure infrastructure capabilities and features that contribute to a robust and resilient availability strategy for workloads running on Azure VMs, there are a number of reasons why you need to plan for disaster recovery between Azure regions yourself:

You want the ability to protect and recover Azure VMs based on your business decisions, and not only based on inbuilt Azure functionality.

You need to be able to test failover and recovery in accordance with your business and compliance needs, with no impact on production.

You need to be able to failover to the recovery region in the event of a disaster and fail back to the original source region seamlessly.

Azure to Azure VM replication using Site Recovery helps you to do all the above.

To set this up you have to create an Azure Recovery Vault. This Recovery vault cannot be in the same region as the source virtual machines, because if the region is down, you will not have access to the vault.

Form that you can choose to create a new Replication and select the virtual machines you want to replicate. You can select the virtual machines you want to replicate. At the end you choose the target location and create the needed target resources and start the replication.

This will now allow you to failover you virtual machines to another Azure region.

So if you are wondering, like many others, if you can and should use SCOM and OMS together? If you are, you are not alone. Join Savision’s upcoming live online session “Combining Monitoring & Analytics with SCOM and OMS” and let the experts answer your questions. Hosted by Savision’s Support Manager – Chris Malay, the session will feature renowned Microsoft MVPs Thomas Maurer & Dieter Wijckmans who will focus on:

OMS: What is new in OMS? | OMS Service Map | OMS Log Analytics

SCOM & OMS: Is OMS a replacement for SCOM? | Why doesn’t OMS do monitoring? | Why do you still need SCOM?

I am proud to travel to the US tomorrow to speak at the MMS MOA 2017. The Midwest Management Summit is held in the Mall of America in Minneapolis and I have been there speaking for the past 3 years now from the first one at MMS 2014, second one at MMS 2015 and the last one just last year at MMS 2016. I am proud to be select as a speaker again this year.

The Midwest Management Summit is a 4-day conference purposely capped to just 750 attendees so that nobody gets lost in the crowd. Speakers have time to meet and talk to you. No rushing people out of a session to get the next speaker going. Time to absorb what you see and talk it over with speakers and other attendees. A true learning experience. Real networking. Real-life issues discussed.

This year I will be speaking in 3 different sessions mostly about Windows Server 2016, Nano Server, Hyper-V, Azure and Containers. And I am also proud to speak together with Samuel Erskine (Microsoft MVP) and John Joyner (Microsoft MVP). We have some exiting new stuff to share with the attendees, hopefully see you in the Mall of America!

The best of Windows Server 2016

Join this session for The Best of Windows Server 2016 – The New Foundation of your Datacenter. You’ll get an overview of the new, exciting improvements that are in Windows Server 2016 and how they’ll improve your day-to-day job. In this presentation Thomas Maurer (Microsoft MVP) will guide you through the highly anticipated innovations including: Hyper-V 2016 features, Nano Server, Storage Spaces Direct, Storage Replica, Windows Server Containers, and more!

Getting Started with Windows Containers, Docker and Azure

In Windows Server 2016 Microsoft released their first version of Windows and Hyper-V Containers. In this session you will get an overview of how containers work and how you can use them for your deployments , as well as how you can get started with Containers and Docker on Windows 10, Windows Server or on Microsoft Azure.

Nano Server - The Future of Windows Server

Nano Server is the future of Windows Server. With Nano Server Microsoft created the foundation for Windows Server for the future. In this session you will get an overview about Nano Server and see some great live demos of how you can deploy, manage and operate Nano Server as well as creating applications for it. Get a better understanding of Nano Server and see how you deploy, manage and operate it.

Today, Thomas Roettinger Senior Program Manager in the Azure Stack Team announced the Technical Preview of the Microsoft Azure Stack Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager. System Center is a datacenter management tool used by many enterprises out there, Operations Manager allows you to monitor your complete datacenter environment based on Management Packs which includes the logic and intelligence to monitor different solutions and products. With the release of the Azure Stack Management Pack, Microsoft enables you to monitor Azure Stack using System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 or System Center Operations Manager 2016.

The Azure Stack Management Pack allows you to send notifications when alerts in Azure Stack pop up. It also allows you to schedule maintenance windows during an Azure Stack update. The MP leverages Azure Stack Health Resource Rest API which is the official API for all Azure Stack help related information and is used by the Azure Stack Portal itself, the PowerShell module and also the Nagios monitoring plugin for Azure Stack. If you are not using SCOM or Nagios you can of course also work against the Azure Stack Health Resource Rest API to get health data out of your Azure Stack appliance.

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About

My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server. Opinions are my own.